On the Public's Right to Know The day Ashcroft censored Freedom of
Information Act
"Passed in 1974 in the wake of the
Watergate scandal, the Freedom of
Information Act has been hailed as one
of our greatest democratic reforms. It
allows ordinary citizens to hold the
government accountable by requesting
and scrutinizing public documents and
records….."
Sunday, January 6, 2002
The San Francisco Chronicle
Editorial
THE PRESIDENT DIDN't ask the
networks for television time. The
attorney general didn't hold a press
conference. The media didn't report
any dramatic change in governmental
policy. As a result, most Americans had
no idea that one of their most precious
freedoms disappeared on Oct. 12.
Yet it happened. In a memo that
slipped beneath the political radar,
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
vigorously urged federal agencies to
resist most Freedom of Information Act
requests made by American citizens.
Passed in 1974 in the wake of the
Watergate scandal, the Freedom of
Information Act has been hailed as one
of our greatest democratic reforms. It
allows ordinary citizens to hold the
government accountable by requesting
and scrutinizing public documents and
records. Without it, journalists,
newspapers,
historians and watchdog groups would
never be able to keep the government
honest. It was our post-Watergate
reward, the act that allows us to know
what our elected officials do, rather
than what they say. It is our national
sunshine law, legislation that forces
agencies to disclose their public
records and documents.
Yet without fanfare, the attorney
general simply quashed the FOIA. The
Department of Justice did not respond
to numerous calls from The Chronicle
to comment on the memo.
So, rather than asking federal officials
to pay special attention when the
public's right to know might collide
with the government's need to
safeguard our security, Ashcroft
instead asked them to consider
whether "institutional, commercial and
personal privacy interests could be
implicated by disclosure of the
information." Even more disturbing, he
wrote:
"When you carefully consider FOIA
requests and decide to withhold
records, in whole or in part, you can be
assured that the Department of Justice
will defend your decisions unless they
lack a sound legal basis or present an
unwarranted risk of adverse impact on
the ability of other agencies to protect
other important records."
Somehow, this memo never surfaced.
When coupled with President Bush's
Nov. 1 executive order that allows him
to seal all presidential records since
1980, the effect is positively chilling.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, we have
witnessed a flurry of federal orders
designed to beef up the nation's
security. Many anti-terrorist measures
have carefully balanced the public's
right to know with the government's
responsibility to protect its citizens.
Who, for example, would argue against
taking detailed plans of nuclear
reactors, oil refineries or reservoirs off
the Web?
No one. Almost all Americans agree
that the nation's security is our highest
priority.
Yet half the country is also worried that
the government might use the fear of
terrorism as a pretext for protecting
officials from public scrutiny.
Now we know that they have good
reason to worry. For more than a
quarter of a century, the Freedom of
Information Act has ratified the public's
right to know what the government, its
agencies and its officials have done. It
has substituted transparency for
secrecy and we, as a democracy, have
benefited from the truths that been
extracted from public records.
Consider, for example, just a few of the
recent revelations -- obtained through
FOIA requests -- that newspapers and
nonprofit watchdog groups have been
able to publicize during the last few
months:
-- The Washington-based
Environmental Working Group, a
nonprofit organization, has been able
to publish lists of recipients who have
received billions of dollars in federal
farm subsidies. Their Web site,
www.ewg.org, has not only
embarrassed the agricultural industry,
but also allowed the public to realize
that federal money -- intended to
support small family farmers -- has
mostly enhanced the profits of large
agricultural corporations.
-- The Charlotte Observer has been
able to reveal how the Duke Power Co.,
an electric utility, cooked its books so
that it avoided exceeding its profit
limits. This creative accounting scheme
prevented the utility from giving lower
rates to 2 million customers in North
Carolina and South Carolina.
-- USA Today was able to uncover and
publicize a widespread pattern of
misconduct among the National
Guard's upper echelon that has
continued for more than a decade.
Among the abuses documented in
public records are the inflation of troop
strength, the misuse of taxpayer
money, incidents of sexual harassment
and the theft of life-insurance
payments intended for the widows and
children of Guardsmen.
-- The National Security Archive, a
private Washington-based research
group,
has been able to obtain records that
document an unpublicized event in our
history. It turns out that in 1975,
President Gerald Ford and Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger gave Indonesian
strongman Suharto the green light to
invade East Timor, an incursion that
left 200,000 people dead.
-- By examining tens of thousands of
public records, the Associated Press
has been able to substantiate the
long-held African American allegation
that white people -- through threats of
violence, even murder -- cheated them
out of their land. In many cases,
government officials simply approved
the transfer of property deeds. Valued
at tens of million of dollars, some
24,000 acres of farm and timber lands,
once the property of 406 black families,
are now owned by whites or
corporations.
These are but a sample of the
revelations made possible by recent
FOIA requests. None of them endanger
the national security. It is important to
remember that all classified documents
are protected from FOIA requests and
unavailable to the public.
Yet these secrets have exposed all
kinds of official skullduggery, some of
which even violated the law. True, such
revelations may disgrace public officials
or even result in criminal charges, but
that is the consequence -- or shall we
say, the punishment -- for violating the
public trust.
No one disputes that we must
safeguard our national security. All of
us want to protect our nation from
further acts of terrorism. But we must
never allow the public's right to know,
enshrined in the Freedom of
Information Act, to be suppressed for
the sake of official convenience.
sfgate.com
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